I'll get to the outscoring green by 15% part 1st. His 88 PPG pace is 8 points better than any season in the 21st Century. He played in the perfect situation, as he was allowed to join in the attacking style that Washington played that year.
How far ahead was Orr in terms of ppg compared to everyone else in the 70 or so prior years of the 20th century when he started putting up 100 plus point seaons? Well ahead of where Green's ppg compares to other defencemen over the last decade. I would also have to assume that any coach with Orr on his team would change his gameplan to suit the strengths of his best player, so style of play would likely not be a huge concern.
When Orr played he was allowed, and able to because of the talent level (or lack or it), to play as a modern day rover.
Orr was no rover. Orr was a defenceman who happened to be far better than everyone else. It's hard to imagine a rover as among the best defensive players in the world. Orr did not put up massive points by neglecting his defensive responsibilities in the way a rover would. Not even close.
If he was allowed to attack any time he wanted and actually played an offensive game 1st and foremost with little to no attention to to detail he might in a perfect storm season crack 100 points , but he wouldn't even do it all the time in a perfect situation in the 2010 NHL.
So basically you are saying that in a perfect storm Orr just might be able to outscore Mike Green by 15%, but not most years, even if he is allowed to attack any time he wanted, which is a luxury he did not enjoy with Boston even. If you honestly believe that then there is no point continuing, because basic reasoning is not going to work here.
Checking is too good, goalies equipment and technically are too hard to beat (compared to the toothpicks in net during Orr's day and how they played stand up), teams play more systems and almost all players block shots now as well.
So because of the way the game has changed basically all the players of Orr's era would struggle to score. That is interesting, because I provided the example of Ray Bourque, who came into the NHL just five years after Orr, who was clearly not all that close to Orr, and who still managed to be a great player in 2001. That would seem to contradict what you're implying, unless of course the game changed greatly from 1975-1980 or from 2001-2011, much more than it did from 1980-2001. Of course those changes would have to be so great that Orr goes from by far the greatest defenceman ever to just an elite defenceman.
I honestly don't think that most coaches would allow Orr to play the same way that he did in his time and that would severely cut his scoring opportunities that succeeded to the level that 80-95 points might be possible in the right situations.
I agree that Orr would not play the same way. I don't think anyone disagrees with that. To suggest however that Mike Green level scoring "might be possible in the right situations" is honestly just too absurd to take seriously. That would basically imply that Mike Green is Orr's equal offensively, and thus quite a bit better than peak Potvin offensively. If he is that much better than peak Potvin offensively then he would be well ahead of guys like Bourque who closely followed Potvin and were at best his equal offensively. Most would agree that Bourque was somewhat better than Lidstrom offensively, so I suppose that Green must be absolutely blowing Lidstrom away offensively since he is a few years past his peak. That does not seem to be the case, does it. Perhaps there is a flaw in your reasoning.
On to Lemieux, I'm not sure on how many seasons he was the best player in the NHL but scoring the most points and being the best player don't always equate to the same thing IMO.
Obviously they don't. Lemieux wasn't just winning scoring titles by a few points though. When healthy, Lemieux was dominating scoring races unlike anyone other than Gretzky or Howe. He would do that even when he was not healthy. His offensive domination was so thorough that Lemieux did not need to play defence at all in order to be extremely effective, as he controlled the puck for large amounts of time and even when on defence the other team would be worried about keeping him in check at all times. That being said, Lemieux did contribute defensively anyway.
The previous 2 Hart winners beofre Mario's last one in 96, Lindros with 115 points in 73 games and Federov with 107 points in 78 games were all round excellent players who brought a lot more to their game than Mario's secondary impact beyond his points.
The gap between Lemieux's offence and the offence provided by Lindros and Fedorov more than makes up for whatever they bring additionally that is above what Lemieux brings, and quite easily. If Lemieux was healthy in either of those seasons he would have been the MVP easily. This is incredibly obvious.
Put another way, if GMs and coaches were asked to build a team around a player in 96 (for one season so age wouldn't matter), I think Lindros, Federov, Forsberg and the Moose might have been in the mix with Mario as well.
This is insane. Not one person would pick any of those guys for one season over Lemieux. Lemieux was a clear, obvious step up from all of those guys. Eeither you are joking and I'm missing it or you just did not exist/pay attention during Lemieux's career.
Mario was the most offensively gifted player that I have ever seen but he doesn't have the label of a winner like Wayne, and quite a few others deservedly have.
Whether or not he has that label hardly matters (although his two Conn Smythe trophies are more than all the guys you mentioned combined). Everyone knew at the time that Lemieux was the best player in the world easily.
I'm sure Orr would have outscored Potvin, I only point this out because if anyone other than Brad Park had come close to Orr it might bring him back to earth a bit, well not for everyone I know, and also I think Potvin gets under appreciated by a lot of people on these boards as well.
It hardly matters that Orr was dominating the defencemen offensively so much. What is truly impressive was that he was dominating the best forwards offensively.
My comment on the 72 series was more of a statement of the game in the NHL at that time ( I know they didn't have Hull or Orr) but frankly the fact that the Russians came so far in such a small amount of time was amazing and I think part of it was that maybe the NHL wasn't as kick ass as everyone makes them out to be at that point.
If the NHL players were not all that great at the time(which I'm taking as the implication of your statement), then there were basically no great players in the world at the time. If that is the case discussing this is just pointless.
